EIT Digital is proud to announce that Sentryo, 1 of its supported startups and 1 of the 3 winners of its 2014 Idea Challenge contest in the Cyber Security & Privacy category, raised 2M Euros.

Industrial networks are now at the core of our daily lives. They operate smart cities, utilities, energy grids, transportation networks and many critical infrastructures that we all depend on. Tomorrow the Internet of Things will make them even smarter. Unfortunately, security incidents are skyrocketing: malwares like Havex, Blackenergy or Dragonfly specifically targeted industry.

Authorities have responded by issuing new regulations demanding critical infrastructure operators to implement cyber security best practices. Pushed by their shareholders, industrial asset owners are trying to figure out how to protect them. And the solutions from the IT world are not adapted.

Sentryo proposes a cyber security solution for the Industrial Internet and machine-to­-machine networks. Its solution, named Sentryo ICS CyberVision and launched in September 2015, delivers an operational security capacity to prevent, detect and respond to cyber attacks. Unlike IT solutions, Sentryo ICS CyberVision is fully passive, a prerequisite condition for such critical industrial networks.

Sentryo is a 9-people startup founded in June 2014 in Lyon, France by 2 former tenants of Arkoon Network Security: Thierry Rouquet (CEO) and Laurent Hausermann (COO). They met EIT Digital in 2014 during its Idea Challenge startups contest. They competed in the Cyber Security and Privacy category and won the third prize.

"We wanted to be a French-German company. EIT Digital helped us since it is a European-wide organisation" said Thierry Rouquet.

EIT Digital is based in 9 countries in Europe, including France and Germany. Since Sentryo wanted to be first a French-German company, it was supported by Fabien Astic in France and Wolfgang Kniejski in Germany, 2 of the 40 Business Developers of the EIT Digital Accelerator. Sentryo could be introduced to several of EIT Digital’s industrial partners in Germany. The solution was selected for a POC (Proof Of Concept) among other startups. This will allow to implement security as a service in a complex and large scale industrial environment.

EIT Digital also introduced Sentryo to investors, not only in Germany but also in Italy. Eventually, in January 2016, the startup raised 2M Euros from ACE Management and Rhône-Alpes Création in France. These funds will allow the startup to grow in the rest of Europe. And EIT Digital will keep on supporting through its business ecosystem made of 130 partners in Europe.